


The Cat in the Cold

by LunaCatriona



Category: The Thick of It (TV)
Genre: Just Add Kittens, Little Nicola
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-25
Updated: 2018-03-25
Packaged: 2019-04-08 02:48:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,399
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14095455
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LunaCatriona/pseuds/LunaCatriona
Summary: Malcolm finds a stray.Rated for language.





	The Cat in the Cold

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Tereshkova (EarthboundCosmonaut)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/EarthboundCosmonaut/gifts).



> From a random conversation with Tereshkova, as with most things in life. She's done one too - I'm not the only numpty!

It was only midday. Mid fucking day, and already Malcolm Tucker could not be arsed with anything or anybody. Especially the collective fuck up that was the Department of Social Affairs and Citizenship. No, they were enough to drive the fucking Dalai Lama to fucking homicide. The fact he wasn’t yet reliant on alcohol to prevent him committing mass murder was his fucking crowning achievement.

Queen Nicola Murray, Her Majesty the Imbecile of DoSAC had apparently ranted about work at home in front of her kids, only for the eldest to start spouting it off at college and a fucking garbled version of it to be spread over the internet like fucking manure on a tattie field. Thankfully, there was little the press could go with, as it was limited to Facebook and Twitter and was Chinese whispers at its finest, but fucking hell, some of those bloggers gave him a fucking splitting headache, and that was just trying to figure out what fucking word they were trying to spell.

His second fucking problem was it was about minus five degrees, the pavement had not been treated and he couldn’t fucking stride his frustration out on the way back to Downing Street; it wasn’t worth the risk of slipping on the fucking black ice. He already had a headache – he didn’t want to add a cracked skull to that.

“Fucking moron,” he muttered to himself, still irritated by Nicola’s idiocy. God love her, she wasn’t a bad person. If she was, she might actually be good at her job. But she operated on the assumption that people were decent, and on how the world ought to work, rather than the realities of either. He just knew she had believed Katie Murray wouldn’t let those opinions leave the confines of their home; she was naïve. She was fucking naïve, and it caused him no end to fucking headaches.

His mobile rang, and he stopped walking so he could answer it without having to watch for ice. It was just another layer of shit to his day that it was a cold caller. “No, I do not need fucking double glazing,” he snarled. “I already _have_ fucking double glazing! Goodbye!”

He cut the call off and shoved the phone back into his coat pocket, muttering until something caught his attention. In the close that led off the street, a small cat was cowering. Grey, fluffy, and quite obviously underweight, it stared up at him; he wondered if it was frightened of him. And then he realised, of course it fucking was. It was a tiny kitten and he was a six-foot swearing Scot verbally abusing cold callers. If it wasn’t afraid of him, it had to be a fucking psychopath.

Malcolm took a slow and quiet step into the alleyway, careful not to scare it off. It looked hungry, like it had either been abandoned or got quite epically lost. “It’s okay,” he assured it. “I’m not gonnae hurt you.” Was this what his life had come to? Speaking to a fucking cat in a London close?

It made a tentative advance towards him, and eventually rubbed itself up against his outstretched hand. He didn’t have it in him to leave an innocent animal out here to fend for itself. Even he wasn’t that heartless a bastard.

The kitten was small enough that he could scoop it up in one hand and secrete it in the inside pocket of his coat. “We’ll take a detour and get you some food,” he murmured. He could feel it squirm against his chest; it was probably huddling for warmth more than anything else.

Back at Number Ten, he scoured the kitchen for a small plate. He doubted the cat was big enough or trained well enough to manage eating out of a proper bowl without mess or disaster. He found a Chinese takeaway tub and put some water into it, and went back to his office. What the fuck was he doing, feeding a bloody cat from a government office?

He watched as it ate and drank, and then proceeded to explore his office. He chose to ignore it – he had better things to do than mind a cat. As soon as Sam got back, he was going to get her to ring a shelter.

Half an hour passed; Malcolm almost forgot the kitten was there at all, until a book crashed to the floor with a deafening thud. The kitten, when he looked up, was sitting on the bookshelf, peering over the edge at the fallen book, like it hadn’t been the one to knock the bloody book over. “Get down from there,” ordered Malcolm. The cat looked up at him; he nearly felt guilty for glaring at it.

He watched as it struggled to get down from the bookshelf, reasoning that if it could get up there it could just as easily get fucking down. That reasoning, however, seemed to be flawed in this instance, because this cat was not able to get down the same way it got up. Its paw hovered hesitantly over the edge of the shelf, and it let out a rather frightened-sounding cry.

“Fuck’s sake,” Malcolm grumbled, getting to his feet. The thing was a nightmare already. He stood on a chair and took the kitten into his hands. “You’re about as good at being a fucking cat as Nicola Murray is at being a Cabinet Minister.”

It purred as he took it back down to solid ground, presumably relieved to have four paws on the floor.

His mobile phone rang. DoSAC. Christ, couldn’t they go an afternoon without a phone call to him? “Somebody better be kidnapped, dead or decapitated,” he snarled. “Otherwise somebody is _gonna_ be fucking kidnapped, dead or decapitated.”

“Nobody has come to any harm,” Terri said. “I was just phoning to say Nicola is on her way over to see you. She’s got her daughter and her friends to take down most of what was put out there.”

“And she couldn’t have fucking emailed me?”

“I have no idea, but she’s mainlining Rescue Remedy and lemon zinger, and there was no point in arguing with her.”

Malcolm groaned internally. The only thing worse than a visit from Nicola Murray was a visit from an anxious Nicola Murray. He didn’t really feel like enduring her crying today. “Right, fine,” he sighed impatiently. He hung up the phone without allowing Terri to answer him.

The kitten rubbed itself against his leg; as it looked up at him, he noticed the colour of its eyes – a deep blue, with green tinges under the light. “What are you wanting?” he snapped at it. _Why_ was he talking to a fucking cat? It had finally happened, hadn’t it? This place had finally driven him off his fucking head.

He bent down and picked it up. If he put aside how utterly infuriating it was, it wasn’t that bad. Its grey fur was soft, and its face innocent. And an innocent face wasn’t easy to find in Westminster. It didn’t fit in around here, and that was part of its charm. Malcolm placed the cat down onto his desk and went to pick up the book it had thrown to the floor.

There was a knock at the door and a simultaneous dull crash. He turned around to find the cat but it was nowhere to be seen. However, with someone – probably the walking, talking disaster zone – at the door, Malcolm didn’t have time for a kitten hunt. He went to the door and opened it, and in walked Nicola Murray, Fuck-Up Extraordinaire. “Well, is it sorted?” he demanded of her, stepping aside to grant her access to his office.

“Yeah, I’ve got Katie to take most of it down,” Nicola said tensely. “She’s grounded until she learns to be a bit more careful with who she tells about what.”

“So it’s nothing to do with the fact you went home last week and fucking ranted yourself hoarse about how fucking horrendous I am, and how useless the PM is, and how DoSAC is falling apart at the fucking seams?” retorted Malcolm. “That’s fuck all to do with the problem, eh?”

Nicola sat down in a chair and put her hand over her face. “I didn’t think, alright?”

“No, that’s your fucking problem, Nicola – your fucking mouth never stops but your fucking brain never starts, does it?!”

“Oh, don’t-”

“No, _you_ fucking don’t!” he said to her. “Take some fucking responsibility! You’re not a backbencher anymore, Nicola! You’re Secretary of State now. Everybody’s watching you. We’ve had this fucking conversation before!”

A rustling came from around his feet; he knew that it had something to do with the bloody cat, and so tried to ignore it. “It’s difficult to adjust,” Nicola admitted. “And as for my kids, I’ve got almost no control. Jesus, I’m never there, Malcolm!”

He was just about to tell her he wasn’t a fucking agony aunt, until he noticed she had started crying. He had expected it, but it still surprised him. “Oh, for God’s sake, what does that solve?” he asked her. “You don’t adjust by sitting here crying.”

“Then what?” she said. “Seriously, Malcolm, tell me, because I don’t know what I’m meant to do here! You said yourself I’m shit at this job – maybe I should just-”

“You might be shit at it, but there’s nobody else to do it.”

“Cabinet Minister by default,” snorted Nicola. “You really know how to make a girl feel special.”

The waste paper bin at Malcolm’s feet tipped over, and the kitten tumbled across the office. Malcolm froze, while Nicola stared at the little ball of fucking trouble as it scrambled to its feet. “Malcolm,” Nicola began cautiously, “why have you got a kitten in your office?”

When Malcolm regained his composure, he answered, “I found it on the street. I’ll get Sam to put it in a shelter later.”

Nicola leaned over and picked the kitten up. “She’s really thin, Malcolm,” she informed him, her tone worried. “Have you fed her?”

“No, I thought I’d starve it a wee bit longer,” Malcolm replied sarcastically. “Of course I fucking fed it! What do you take me for?!”

“What’s her name?”

“ _It_ hasn’t got a name. It’s going to the shelter at the first fucking opportunity.”

“ _She_ needs a name. Everyone needs a name, Malcolm.” Malcolm rolled his eyes in exasperation; how was he meant to bollock Nicola while she fawned over a fucking kitten? Though, on the upside, she had stopped crying. That was something, at least. “I’d take her home myself, but James despises cats. And she’d probably get squished under a child’s foot.”

Malcolm glowered at the kitten. She – _it_ – was more trouble than it was worth.

“If she goes to the shelter she might get put down,” Nicola said.

That thought caused Malcolm to falter. It hadn’t occurred to him that he might be sending the thing to its death. “I can’t do anything else,” he said. Nicola looked up at him, and he knew exactly what she was thinking. “No. No. No. Not fucking happening.”

“Oh, come on.”

“No! I’m not having that thing skulking about this place! I’ve got enough morons to piss me off, thank you very much!”

Nicola held the kitten up so it faced her, smiling at it like it had any idea who the fuck she was. “You won’t piss Malcolm off! You’re a good girl, aren’t you?”

“Jesus wept,” Malcolm muttered. He took the kitten out of Nicola’s hands and said, “Go on, fuck off back to DoSAC. And try not to give your fucking stroppy teenager state secrets to plaster all over the fucking internet.”

As she passed him, Nicola stopped to scratch behind the kitten’s ears. It purred gently, and Malcolm sighed to himself. For the first time in his memory, he had to admit that Nicola was right – he couldn’t put the cat to an animal shelter and not know what happened to it. He shut the door behind Nicola and sat down with the kitten in his lap.

“Ground rules,” he said firmly. “No interrupting my bollocking. No pestering anybody. No tearing the office up – I’ll get you a post or something. And _definitely_ no shitting the place. That’s what a litter box is for.” The kitten pawed across his thighs towards his hand, her front paws on the arm of his chair; she was not as aloof as he thought most cats were. “And that fucking idiot was right, wasn’t she?” he confessed for the second time today. “You do need a name.”

At that moment, she slipped and dropped to the floor. Malcolm carefully moved his chair back so as not to catch her under the wheels.

“You’re really shit at being a cat, aren’t you?” he smirked. His opinion of her still stood – she was as good at being a cat as Nicola Murray was at being a Cabinet Minister. He leaned down and picked her up in his hands. She was tiny, bony, fragile and inherently innocent. He was going to have to get her checked by a vet; he didn’t want to let her have too much food too quickly, and it was better to know if there was anything else wrong with her.

Malcolm placed the kitten down onto the desk and went out to Sam’s office; she was back from lunch. “Sam, could you get me the number for a vet?”

Sam looked up from her computer in surprise. “A vet?”

“Yes, a vet,” Malcolm repeated. “Preferably nearby. And one that operates outwith normal office hours,” he added.

Sam frowned at him but took out the Yellow Pages. She flicked through it and stopped to scan a page, writing down an address and phone number. “This one is just a few minutes away, and it’s open twenty-four hours,” she said as she gave him the sticky note with the information written on it. “Dare I ask?”

“No,” Malcolm replied. “Better not to ask, in my experience.”

He returned to his office and picked up the phone to dial the number Sam had given him. A woman answered the phone, “Good afternoon, Gerald Street Veterinary Clinic. How may I help you?”

“Hi, I’ve just taken in a kitten. She’s a bit underweight and she’s been living rough so I’d like her checked over.”

“Of course,” the woman said. “We have a cancellation at seven tonight, if that suits.”

“That’ll be fine.”

The kitten was on the bookshelf again, looking down like she was on the white cliffs of Dover. “Can I take your name, sir?”

“Malcolm Tucker.”

He heard the woman type away; the kitten poised herself to jump. “And does the cat have a name?”

Malcolm was on the verge of saying he hadn’t given her a name yet when the idiot jumped. She jumped, and skidded across the table, straight over the edge and into the chair below. And as she stood up and brushed herself off, it came to him. “Little Nicola,” he said. “The real Nicola’ll kill me dead, but the cat’s name is Little Nicola.”

“Alright,” the receptionist said; he could hear the laughter in her voice. “You’re booked in for seven o’clock this evening.”

“Thank you.” Malcolm hung up the phone and watched Little Nicola clamber back onto the table from which she had just fallen. “Didn’t you learn the first time?”

* * *

** One week later **

“Get over here! Preferably wearing chainmail!” he barked down the phone at Nicola Murray. He didn’t let her give a reply; he hung up and tossed his mobile down onto the desk.

Fucking hell, that woman was stupid. She tried, but she was born doomed to fucking failure.

Little Nicola lay curled up in her bed, licking her paws. “And you, you either glower threateningly or keep out my fucking road,” he warned her. “I can’t tell the Minister how thick she is if she’s busy cooing over how fucking cute you are.”

The vet had given her a clean bill of health, apart from needing a good feed and being a bit slow between the ears. So Malcolm had gone and bought a collar, a bed, bowls, and a litter box, and set up in his office. Nobody had dared pass comment on her presence, though Malcolm knew better than to think they didn’t think it ridiculous. However, it was more ridiculous to send an innocent animal to an uncertain future.

That knock at the door was becoming all too familiar – Malcolm feared he would be able to tell Nicola Murray’s knock apart from everyone else’s before long. “Come in!” he shouted.

Nicola stepped into the room and sat down in the chair opposite Malcolm. “Whatever you’re about to call me, I’ve already called myself,” she said. “It was a stupid thing to say, and I promise I will never mention the Prime Minister’s tantrums ever again.”

Malcolm was momentarily stunned by her taking responsibility for what she had said. Was she taking the advice he gave her last week? “I know Tom’s a bit of a fucking halfwit but there’s no need to let the press be reminded of that,” he said. “Fuck knows they’ve got enough fucking ineptitude to write about when they start with your name, anyway.”

“Thanks a lot,” Nicola sighed. “You really do wonders for the self-esteem, you know that?” Little Nicola got out of bed and stretched herself, and pawed at her ear. “You kept her, then?”

“It certainly would appear so,” Malcolm replied irritably.

Little Nicola pressed her body against Nicola’s legs; she bent over and took the cat into her hands. “She’s filled out a bit.”

“Haven’t you got work to do?”

“Hey, _you_ called _me_!”

“Yeah, to give you a bollocking, but you seem to have taken that pleasure away from me,” he told her. “So off you fuck.”

Nicola didn’t reply, and Malcolm looked up to see her staring down at Little Nicola. Or, more specifically, her name tag. Her expression when she met his gaze was mutinous. “ _Little Nicola_ ,” she said in outraged tones. “Why did you name a _cat_ after me?!”

“How do you know it was about you? I know plenty of Nicolas.”

But Nicola was far from convinced. “You’re a twat.”

“Oh, tell me something I don’t know,” grumbled Malcolm, taking Little Nicola away from Nicola’s grasp and setting her down on the desk.

“You haven’t answered my question.”

How typical of Nicola, that she chose now to be sharp in the head.

“She’s a dopey fuck,” Malcolm said honestly. “She’s as good at being a cat as you are at being a Cabinet Minister.”

“Again, Malcolm, who needs therapy when I have you bolstering my self-esteem?”

“You didn’t let me finish,” Malcolm said. “You never let me fucking finish.” Nicola raised an eyebrow at him but gestured for him to continue. “I was going to say, she lacks something other cats seem to find easy. She’s a misfit. And being a misfit in this place isn’t necessarily a bad thing.”

The corners of Nicola’s mouth turned upwards for just a fraction of a moment before she straightened her face back into a stern glare. “Still, she’s a _cat_ , Malcolm!” she protested. “It’s disrespectful!”

“But she’s a nice cat! You should take it as a compliment!” Nicola shook her head, still pissed off with him. Little Nicola dived off the desk and into Nicola’s lap. “And she likes you, look!”

Nicola stroked Little Nicola and smiled slightly. “At least you’ve stopped calling her ‘it,’ though. That’s progress.” Malcolm smirked, and noted how Nicola’s anxiety levels were less pronounced when she handled the cat. Maybe Little Nicola was good for something. “Right, now I’ve been suitably humiliated, am I free to go?” she asked, passing Little Nicola to Malcolm.

“I did tell you to fuck off.”

Nicola threw him a dirty look and got to her feet. As she opened the door, Malcolm took Little Nicola’s paw and waved it at Nicola. “Say goodbye to Big Nicola, Little Nicola,” he said, trying not to let his amusement show in his face.

“Fuck you, Malcolm!” Nicola called from the hallway. Malcolm sat back down and let Little Nicola settle back to sleep on his leg, leaving him to work without interruption.


End file.
